Therefore, it’s pure fun to consider wikis and weblogs as aleatoric devices, as far as one can use them to rearrange every single encoded knowledge-snippet in any way possible. This mind shifting technology leads to completely different workflows concerning the acquisition and distribution of knowledge within any scientific or artistic domain, because knowledge working and artistic practice become composing.

The term aleatoric was introduced in 1954 by Werner Meyer-Eppler. He borrows the idea from “Théorie des fonctions aléatoires” of André Blanc-Lapierre and Robert Fortet. Meyer-Eppler defines processes within an acoustical context as aleatorical as far as the overall course is predefined, although in detail everything stays related to accident. So, aleatoric is less about pure accident than about small, controlled aberrations within the flow of things.

In musical terms, this is equivalent to the uniqueness of every single interpretation of a composition. No musician will play an aleatoric compsition the same twice. Constant innovation and expressiveness is a logical consequence of this technique.

The associative structure of knowledge within wikis makes it especially appropriate to browse the content according to aleatorical principles. In an analogous manner we just have to slightly change the sequence in which we navigate wiki-pages to change the meaning of the retrieved context.

This way aleatoric becomes a cognitive style, which describes a best practice wiki usage; quite amazing indeed! One doesn’t focus exclusively on one specific info page anymore, instead meaning becomes a byproduct of the arrangement and sequencing of several knowledge-snips. The interrelation of messages as deliberate ascription of meaning turns working with the semantic web into a creative game as an universal epistemological approach to science and art and a perfect way to deal with complexity.

Therefore, a wiki of a very different kind is going to be presented as part of the lecture. A wiki to be regarded as a society of interacting snippets of code, of software agents producing autonomously associated text and images describing a digital driven world.

In order to expand their acoustic capabilities they will be turned into sound machines by breaking and redesigning existing electronic circuits. Due to short-circuiting and redirecting the current, new chaotic circuits emerge that create unpredictable effects to the device and its acoustic behavior.

“We started to realize that you get really good pictures out of a computer when you short circuit the hardware in a night of unsuccessful programming and after attacking it with a knife. Then we tried the same with a cable providing an audio-signal instead of a knife and got the pictures to actually jump to the bass. That was the starting point of our life performance. The video you can find online is a really early one, I’m cutting a more up to date video at the moment, because we extended our show with some performative elements like a massive hammer, a circular saw and fire. Then we built the »shockbot«, because we thought that we don’t need to kill the computers, they can actually destroy eachother on their own. This is the very short history of our work.”

ToyGenoSonic MAKES THE PLAYERS DISCOVER the invisible heart of commodities in urban space. ToyGenoSonic’s notation consists of the mathematical representation of player movements, objects and locations of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) numbers. The interaction-concept plays with the fact, that RFID tags are found in key cards, city transport tickets, ID-cards. Each found RFID tag has a unique number, which generates sound on the Nintendo DS game console by numeric processes that drive the sound synthesis. With an extended game-console, after inserting the artisan Ludic Society’s pataboard tag-reader into the toy’s slot, the player can generate a RFID number specifi c sound, by holding it over a tag. As expanded game console the sharply inclined front-shield becomes an art collector’s item!

The Ludic Society constitutes as international association (54 members, founded 2006) to provoke Ludics as emerging investigation discipline, which ironically follows inverse trajectories of toy and mobile technologies culture to cause an effect of awareness in the critical constitution of a society, in which the shifting increase on games and gadgets, smart objects, technical objectiveness of the subjects (RFID implants, blobjects, „blog-jects“ etc.) can be indicated as phenomenon of a crisis of reality constitution abilities of the individual in the society in general. Real Play is investigated as phenomenon, which transfers the rules of play into real life, as statement and as reaction to indicate western societies as game systems of power, as evident in the world economic fall of capitalism in 2008. Ludic Society as arts project features combinatory, metamorphosis devices. aesthetic experiments on the electronic layout of toys towards plays on identity of the artists and players.

In contemporary “Ludic” realities the presenting artist performs in her arts practice as 1st Life Game Figure. The lecture will include a video of the art-game “Judgement day for 1st Life Game Figures”, Plymouth, UK 2007, including a chip implant session of a subcutaneous Radio Frequency Identification Tag, RFID, declared as “toy” by the performers/players. The introduction of tracking and tracing technologies, gadgets like GPS or WIFI scans as contemporary “toys”, or even more its detection as integrated part of Standard Model toy gadgetry, in Game-boys or NDS consoles, is demonstrated by works, which integrate this
technologies in urban games from 2007-2008.

As general description of the argument, this thinking-layout will cover crucial elements of play culture investigation and will suggest possible solutions in a detected lack of discourse and joyful practice in the design, art and reception of games, play and toys. ludic-society.net/desire

The final point indicates a new genre, to introduce 1st Life Game-figures”, which was labelled by the artist as “game fashion” (2006). Absurde ‘pataphsyical and neo-situationist plays in the “reality engine”, (expect a presentation of the WIFI mapping game Objects of Desire, Gijon, 2008), will sumup conclusions for players in everyday life, in relation to omnipresent subject-object alterations.

Warables without wires, “gamefashion sans fils”, will be introduced. Such toy-dresses transform players into toys themselves. Their movement patterns can be identified by everyday mobile gadgetry, uploaded to a collective gathering place, in Web2.0. Accordingly such Game 3.0 VISUALLY CODED GAMEFASHION, integrate the construction of an Avatar by 1st Life data-traces and misuse geographical mapping systems, like “Google” maps, as Game-maps and metaphors.

PLAY_OBJECTS
What role does the individuality and subject plays in relation to the artefacts, either in materialised Internet of Things (Kranenburg, 2008) or in synthetic worlds games: On one hand Japan’s costume players generate their own communities and incorporate a reality shaped by the new more-way mass media games. On the other hand the Internet of Things declares each commodity and each object as an elaborated entity with its own history and traceable time and way of nascence. The presentation tries to show how these individual worlds of things affect and subsequently change the role of the subject object dualism.

As first step objects and subject relations in toy worlds will be clarified. The so called Internet of Things must not only be considered as playground for commodity logistics, but as constitutive element of „Subjectivation by Dingpolitik“. In this theoretical construct the Thing indicates a gathering place for the community. Similarly virtual play-grounds are a Thing, a community play fetish inside the game of life, filled with objects of desire.

Such contemporary evidence of the link of the construction of subjectivity to toys draws attention towards toys as political “Things”. The cultural scientist Bruno Latour (2005) describes the THING in its etymological meaning and in its political tradition, as gathering place, comparable to a magic circle of play. This social gathering is triggered by objects, by things, which differentiate its opposing realities of self perception in social platforms, whereas the technological toys intrude the subjects skin.

A new paradigm shift is expressed in an unexpected turn towards the „real“, expressed and incorporated in a new consciousness, focusing on materialism. Spheres of electronic networks are made conscious by the means of objects and things, called Spimes, Blogjects, Smartifacts (Sterling, 2006). In the following toy objects shall be addressed as semi-material objects, which serve as vehicle to present the shift of selfconsciousness. In actual games and Online Worlds toys are properties of shape shifters, play-forms of multifacetted self, as expressed in Avatar environments. Metaverse conceptions offer another level of playerconsciousness, formed by the use of synthetic objects. The semi-material toy of actual techno-gadgetry, as a Nintendo DS game console, Iphone, or a Nokia N95 communicator with 3G sensors of WII consoles inherently hold this semi-materialism between a synthetic object and a material toy.

Introducing Ludics / The Ludic Society / Ludic Society Magazines
Ludic methodology must be rooted in theory and applies principles of play as modus operandi. Its emphasis lies on the futility of actual western culture gadgetry rush. Beyond the focus on ostensible toy object accelerando as objective, lays the self reflexive observation of the meta-game of establishing a metascientific society, which constitutes in a collaborative structural play and communicates in its specific Lingo terminology and means and vehicles of publication.
Ludics as emerging investigation discipline ironically follows inverse trajectories of toy and mobile technologies culture to cause an effect of awareness in the critical constitution of a society, in which the shifting increase on games and gadgets, smart objects, technical objectiveness of the subjects (RFID implants, blogjects etc.) can be indicated as phenomenon of a crisis of reality constitution abilities of the individual in the society in general. Real Play is investigated as phenomenon, which transfers the rules of play into real life, as statement and reaction indicating western societies as game systems of power. The poetic method of Ludic texts applies aphorisms as introduced by Nietzsche.

An Action Research Model by Toy Object/IF/ES
Ludic socialites create a special T.A.Z., a Temporary Autonomous Zone (Hakim Bey), which under Ludic banners is further developed as extended game zone, as a T.E.Z., a Temporary Entertainment Zone, in urban and social realities. Its tools and toys are magazines in print, sites online and public interventions in between different spheres of action (play-game-culture-online-First Life). These principles and exemplary games are elaborated since the affiliations foundation in November 2005. The society’s membership still continues to grow. On that point we must express severe gratitude to all contributing personalities and condividualities for their willingness to play the game, to enter into the constraints of Ludics for the merits of a scientific play. As introduced, Ludics implies experiments in playful ways of discourse and reflection on the world of designated toy objects as gaming reality – and by releasing such toys for field studies! The rising use of the term Ludic is considered as a proof of evidence by the Ludic Society researchers. alised material universe of smart objects yearns for a radical antipode: Tous les enfants parlent à leurs joujoux!

Ludics applies the logics of arts but is poaching in the fields of a ‘patascience, materialising “solutions potentielles”, on game and play cultures. It gathers a variety of contributors with expertise in arts, theory, curatorial practice and gaming.
Each theory issue is accompanied by a practical project, an urban game or public intervention, including Geographical Mapping Systems, War Chalking Games supported by NDS standard model game consoles, electromagnetic toys. Printed circuit Boards were given ISBN numbers and used as new publication format, to bring different systems of discursive power to glitch. As “Dispositive” LS members develop new bachelor machines, objects and Game Fashion.

Toy Objectives / Theoretical Toys
In 2007 the first Ludic manifesto was published in Eludamos, a new renowned European game studies magazine. Posters and papers were held at game studies circles like DIGRA, Digital Games Research Association, Tokyo University and 2008 at the Collége du ‘pataphysique daughter Snowball Association in Sierre/Valais. Does this mean that Ludics unfolds as emerging academic discipline? Logically enough this can be refused. Its strategic discourses, bizarre SM couplings of topics, poetic syntax and content are unique and schismatically distinct from established game arts theories. Such methodology provokes unexpected jumps in the science program of the anatomy of games culture. Method and matter produce plain weird but scientifically convincing results to the selfish personal ple/ay/sure of Ludic socialites — a subject/object branch to Fishkill to honour Père UBU!

History
The affiliations periodical in print, the Ludic Society Magazine, appears with international articles on jouissance, joy and jeux. The magazine was presented at 2005 Neue Galerie Graz, 2006 salon transmediale Berlin and Centre Conde Duque Madrid, 2007 Art Centre Plymouth, Tweakfest Zurich, and DEAF Rotterdam Evening Of the Ludic Society, 2008 at Homo Ludens Ludens Gijon and transmediale 08 in a Ludic Society Control Room. Ludic methodology verbalises as poetic statement in neo-pataphysical text, games and toys.
Issue # 1, 2005. Ludics. New Bachelor Machines. Graz/Madrid.
Issue # 2, 2006. Real Players. Ludic Interfaces. Vienna/Zurich.
Issue # 3, 2007. Tagging the City. Plymouth/ Zurich
Issue # 4, 2007. Metaverse and World3. Zurich/ Vienna
Issue # 5, 2008. Objects of Desire. Bari/ Vienna

As addendum it should be mentioned that the project did start in 2005 with the presentation of an installation called “Ludic Society Traces”, exhibited at Neue Galerie Graz and Centre Conde Duque Madrid. Comparable to an ethnographical museum, in baroque vitrines artisan etched toys, made of printed circuit boards were shown together with a LS magazine. The toys were electronically, networked among each other into one kind of materialised Rube Goldberg Machine; in fact they ere technologically working but emantically useless interfaces to game technologies. We called them GoApe Chindogus. The frontispiece of issue one of the Ludic Society magazine (2005) listed the Ten Tenets of Chindogu (Kawakami). The ironic description focused on futile but beloved objects, without any established value in society. Its proximity to the gift in the tradition of Potlatch became seminal for the claim of Ludics. Finally, in 2007 Second Life Lollies were printed as currency of the Ludic Society. At DEAF Rotterdam visitors did get real Surinam food at the Las Palmas warehouse for this colonial Orbis Tertius (Borges) Third World currency, the LS Lolly.

The Ludic Society as Affiliation
was launched in conjunction with artists, theoreticians interested in the practice of play as strategy in everyday life, especially in relation to a growing culture of ubiquitous computing toys and a phenomenology, subsumed under “Real Play”. The emphasis lies on the investigation of a playful methodology to raise awareness about the rules of play simmering into our nowadays Ludic Societies. Indicator for that are mobile gadgetry as phones and game consoles and its abilities to scan personal access data, trace users towards the establishment of a complete World3, a Orbis Tertius as living reality, which is by no means as free and open as Constant (1968) described a new ludic society. The invisible cities architecture, theoretical and discourse focus is paralleled with a line of experimental alternate reality, urban games and ubiquitous computing games. Out of that content focus a network did grow since the affiliations foundation with 6 members to actual over 50 international renowned members from the field of game -arts, -studies, philosophies and theory. The connection and discourse among members is established by the publication of the club periodical, the Ludic Society Magazine in print, paralleled with a on line version, featuring dynamic topics. The main strategy was to link a practical collaborative game art work to each issue edited. According to this thematic trajectory, new associates and members join in with each issue. By this way also a respectable network of instiutional affiliations was achieved.

People and Socialites
The Ludic Society still grows, active recruitment takes place with each new issue to be released. Membership is a matter of affinity and friendship, a purely subjective decision among peers; its only objective precondition is an engagement of the aspirant to some submission to the Ludic community or to Ludics as emerging discipline, at least in the form of a statement for one of the publications. Even with the activist implantation of RFID chips members were recruited, as subversive subcoutanous Real Play statement. Editors of the first 5 magazines were Jahrmann/ Moswitzer, which must/will not necessarily remain like this.
Random selection of some actual active affiliates, random order: Ilias Marmaras, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Doris Carmen Rusch, Stewart Home, Martin Howse, Natasha Vita-More, Alessandro Ludovico, David McConville, Martha Blassnig, Konrad Becker, Edward Castronova, Roy Ascott, Cynthia Haynes, Marina Grzinic, Beat Suter, Wolfgang Fiel, P. M. Ong, Mr. Ministeck, Ernst Strouhal, DJ GLow, Mathias Fuchs, Maia Engeli, Max_Oh, F.E. Rakuschan, Gordan Savicic, Mike Phillips, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Nikos Bubaris, Eleni Myrivili, Duncan Shingleton, Günther Hack, Julian Oliver, Geoff Cox, Kristian Lukits, Joasia Krysa, Olli Leino, McKenzie Wark, Aileen Derieg, Dr. Joachim Maier, Daphne Dragona, Siegfried Zielinsky.

Society Chapters
The Society is Hell’s Angels like organised in “chapters”, in Vienna, Zurich, Spain or Plymouth. As the bikers club tuned their machines the Ludits tune absurde hard-ware devices, like SM standard model game consoles, GPS, or NFCmobile phones, to over-clock game concepts as reality concepts. Ouvroir as French term for garage used by the ‘pataphysical society, inspired another motto of Ludics, to develop Ouvroirs Ludic Potentielles, OU/LU/PO! In Ludics one declares certain constraints, in short games, as production principles of poetic work. Then Ouvroir is epistemologically rooted in ouvrir (=open), which lead to Real Play experiments in open living forms, artes liberales, establishing sexual relations and bands. As Temporary Entertainment Zones, these appearances disappear in the moment they are established: In honour to Hakim Bey the LS releases TAPZ, temporary autonomous play zones!

“Most recently, the Ludic Society has been developing absurd interfaces for gaming and performance. Their current work involves aesthetically redesigning circuit boards so they become fashion objects and can also be performed as musical instruments. This challenges the normally unquestioned functionality, utilitarianism, and inscrutability of not only circuit boards, but also the objects they enable and therefore represent. As something that typical mortals cannot understand, technology has acquired an almost spiritual mystique and therefore a position of power in contemporary culture. By twisting (figuratively and literally) the circuit board into something quite different and unexpected, the Ludic Society turns assumptions about technology’s cultural role on their head.“
Amy Alexander, San Diego

Objective xxxxx: Wave-Objects
Inspired by game consoles and handhelds, the Ludic Society developed a series of new bachelor machines and neo-’pataphysist objects. Their launch was heralded by a series of PCB Chindogus, Printed Circuit Board objects, 2005 to 2006. These garage-works were accomplished by Wunderbäumchen aether refreshers in spring 2007, followed by a subcutaneous RFID bijoux implant in a gallery space in England, as activist statement. Several City walks and war drives, guided by cabal satellite maps followed as performances on Dérive and Détournement. The technological lie was achieved by the application of Kaballa rules on read RFID numbers as Alternate Reality constituting elements of a game. In winter 2007 in a urban game by the LS at Piksel Norway, firmware flashed game consoles for city walks were connected to customized RFID reader toys. Public interventions paralleled game fashion, to culminate in futile toy objects.
A hitherto immaterial culture has changed into a ubiquitous one, made of smartifacts, blogjects, spimes. This re-materialised material universe of smart objects yearns for a radical antipode: Tous les enfants parlent à leurs joujoux!

Alternate Reality Engine
The Ludic Society commutes theory and transformative play as strategy in everyday life, especially in relation to a growing culture of ubiquitous computing toys and Real Plays. Parallel with the emphasis on the investigation of a playful methodology to raise awareness about the rules of play simmering into our nowadays Ludic Societies, to mobile gadgetry as phones and game consoles and its abilities to scan personal access data and trace users towards the establishment of a complete World3, a Orbis Tertius as living reality, which is by no means as free and open as Constant (1968) was describing a new ludic society. The invisible cities architecture, theoretical and discourse focus was paralleled with a line of experimental alternate reality, urban games and ubiquitous computing projects.

The expressive value of fashionable wearables can be greatly heightened by the integration of technology. By incorporating electronics into a garment we can transform traditional fashion elements such as color, texture, and cut to include movement, touch, light, sound, and interactivity as new aesthetic interaction interfaces. It is important to recognize the value of the word fashion, pointing out that aesthetics and style have been an obvious tool for the communication of values, culture, status and mood individually over time. Fashionable wearables are associated with adornment and style. Humans are fashionable beings who are attentive to style and the powerful potential of wearable technologies.

Code as Interface
1 of 1 is a design studio founded by Cait Reas that synthesizes fashion and art. It demonstrates the fusion of fashion and code in the project “Tissue Collection”. The individually signed and numbered garments are a result of the collaboration between the artist C.E.B. Reas and fashion designer Cait Reas. The artist created generative images by defining processes and then translating them into images through code using the software “Processing”. These patterns were then applied to the fabric by the fashion designer using digital textile printing. Thus the dynamically generated moving images are converted into static image as soon as they are printed permanently on the fabric not allowing any duplication.

In the next iteration I would suggest that garments become animated canvases through the dynamic display of such generated images. The future calls for the dynamic generation of visuals on the surfaces of our garments to enable real-time interaction and to allow the wearer to create their own aesthetic interfaces.

Aesthetic Interaction Interfaces
Fashionable wearables are aesthetic interaction interfaces that are more than mere fashion. They incorporate technological elements that transform them into interactive interfaces. Today, fashionable wearables are mediators of information and amplifiers of fantasy, ranging from consumer fashion to the stage garment of a performer.

It is a common assumption of cyber-anthropologists, that an increase in virtuality leads to an increased level of internationalism, cosmopolitan lifestyle, and a global, borderless image space. [Rath, 1987] [Faßler, 1999] [Ascott, 2000] The national territories supposedly dissolve, borders become meaningless and cultural differences melt into a ubiquitous image space, sound-pool and hypertext archive. The pilot projects of telematic art, connected the teepees of First Nation chiefs with European media centres [Ascott, 1989] or Wien (Vienna) with Vancouver – creating a virtual supermerger city called “Wiencouver”. [Grundmann, 1984]. Contemporary social networking environments attempt to look cosmopolitan as well. SecondLife promotes an open and free toy society of semi-anonymous avatars from all around the globe, who peacefully share islands, clubs and shopping malls. The potentially cross-cultural 3D agora turns out to be as Philistine as can be, a petty bourgeois low-cost paradise with garden gnomes, ducks on ponds and ornamental trees in pink and white.

The islands and meeting spaces attract groups of similarly styled visitors who, quickly agree to fall back into their regional jargon, dress code and political conventions. Go to France Pitoresque, to Japan Resort, or to any of the SecondLife art places to find out how locally restricted and narrow-minded the World Wide Web can be. These locations are characterised by an extreme homogenisation of appearance and talk. Foreign languages are not strictly forbidden – they are often cherished as exotic and cool -, but the practice is less then monolingual, it is controlled by a totalitarism of jargon below the level of language or even dialect. SecondLife is a conglomerate of cyberprovincialism rather than an international community. I would like to suggest that there is a counter-trend to expanding locality in Virtual Worlds, a user-generated trend of imploding locality. Locality collapses into a digital Mega-suburb of gym-trained, cyber-solarium tanned bores who have set their daylight zone to eternal noon. There is however hope in virtual geography. When Erik Champion stated that “Being Not-there May be More Achievable” [Champion, 2006] he suggested that en route from real tourism via augmented reality and augmented virtuality to full immersive virtual reality, we might stop by at a locative state of being not-there. Unlike tele-presence this form of negative presence has a distant closeness to an idealised travel destination. It “creates a sensation of place (as a cultural site) in a virtual environment in contradistinction to a sensation of a virtual environment as a collection of objects and spaces.”

ASCOTT, ROY: Aspects of GAIA. Telematic Installation, Ars Electronica, Linz 1989
ASCOTT, ROY: Art, Technology, Consciousness, Bristol 2000
CHAMPION, ERIK: Evaluating Cultural Learning in Virtual Environments, Brisbane 2006
FASSLER, MANFRED: Cyber-Moderne, Wien New York 1999
GRUNDMANN, HEIDI (ED.): Art + Telecommunication, Wien 1984 RATH, C.D.: The Invisible Network, London 1987

Human-computer interaction (= HCI) is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and includes the study of the major phenomena surrounding this theme. Human-computer interaction pertains to the joint performance of tasks by humans and machines; the structure of communication between humans and machines; human capabilities to use machines (including the learnability of interfaces); algorithms and programming of the interface itself; engineering concerns that arise in designing and building interfaces; the process of specification, design, and implementation of interfaces; and design trade-offs. Human-computer interaction thus has science, engineering and design aspects. Because human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in communication, it draws on underpinning knowledge both from the side of the machine and of the human. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology and human performance are relevant. And, of course, human aspects such as emotions and feelings become relevant as well.

2. Emotional and Metaphoric Interfaces
Artists and designers have always been skilled in applying metaphors when designing systems, objects or works of art. Metaphors can evoke certain sensations or emotions in the spectators, feelings that can often not be described with words alone. The power of metaphors is in the fact that they tap into cultural, historic and emotional knowledge that we humans have built up in the course of our lives. Touching for example an object that looks like a cat (even if it is in fabric or plastic) will evoke a nice, warm and cozy feeling, or emotions of personal attachment and care might be triggered. Through our daily interactions with objects or even beings that we touch, manipulate, look at, perceive or interact with, we have developed a rich intuitive knowledge of how these things work and what kind of emotions and sensations are being attached to them. Using this immanent, intuitive and emotional knowledge, in 1991 we became interested in exploring the power of emotional and metaphoric interfaces. The first emotional and metaphoric interface we designed in 1992 was a living plant. In this system real plants are the interfaces, and users touch these plants to create artificial plants on a computer screen. When users touch a real plant and see the effect of this touch translated into a graphical form on a screen, they are suddenly reminded of that immanent intuition they already had about plants. It is for this reason that we must increase our awareness of the ways that the interface carries these beliefs as hidden content.

3. Natural and Intuitive Interfaces
Closely linked to designing emotional and metaphoric interfaces is the concept of natural and intuitive interfaces. By this we mean interfaces that feel very easy and natural in their use, without that the user has to go through a lengthy learning process when he or she wants to interact with this system. Natural interfaces are, for example, gesture-, speech-, touch-, vision- and smell-based interactions or basically actions and sensations that refer to our daily life experiences. Using, for example, living plants as an interface not only provides a new, emotionally charged and unusual connection between computers and living beings but it also poses the questions of what a plant is, how we perceive it and how we interact with it when we touch it or approach it. Natural interfaces also circumvent the annoyance of wearing unpleasant devices before entering virtual space (= unencumbered interaction). As the user moves about in the interaction space, he or she starts to learn how to use his or her body for triggering and playing sounds and music.

4. Non-linear, Multilayered and Multimodal Interaction
We also believe that interaction in interactive systems should not be linear but instead feel like a journey. The more one engages in interaction, the more one should learn about it and the more one should be able to explore it. We call this non-linear interaction as it is not pre-scripted and predictable but instead develops as users interact with the system. The interaction path in our systems should also be multilayered, meaning that the interaction feedback should be simpler at the beginning and become increasingly complex when users further interact with the system, continuously discovering new levels of interaction experiences. And finally, a last cornerstone in designing our systems is the design of multimodal interaction experiences that combine several senses, such as vision, sound, touch and smell. Over the past years multimodal interaction has in fact become a mainstream research trend in HCI, and it defines multimodality as the combination of multiple input modalities to provide the user with a richer set of interactions compared to traditional unimodal interfaces. The combination of input modalities can be divided into six basic types: complementarity, redundancy, equivalence, specialization, concurrency, and transfer.

5. Interface Cultures: Creating Innovative Interaction Experiences
In 2004 the University of Art and Industrial Design in Linz established a new master study program called “Interface Cultures”. The title of this program was coined by the university based on the book “Interface Culture” by Steven Johnson. He predicted that new types of interfaces will alter the style of our conversations, prose and thoughts in the future and he rightfully predicted that interface designs would be strongly linked to artistic innovation as they reach out into applications in our daily lives. By designing interactive systems that bridge social, entertaining and artistic elements thr prototypes and installations of artists and designers have often reached out in the wider field of media products and entertainment applications. Being situated at an art university, we foremost concentrated on the development of artistic prototypes and projects that bridge the gap between art, design, entertainment and product development. One of our main goals is to create an environment where artistic exploration can be combined with technical and scientific research.

nOtbOt is an automated game-player which is controlled and deranged by reactions to its own virtual environment, caught in a vicious force-feedback loop…

The installation consists of a hacked up human-computer interface in which the feedback system, originally intended to provide tangible interaction for a human player, is now used as input data to control a “first-person” videogame. Human interaction with the game/controller becomes obsolete, resulting in a completely erratic form of [art]ifi cial intelligence. The observer of the installation, however, can literally try to “get a grip” on taking control of the system…

“Walter Langelaar’s n0tb0t antagonises conventions of games as slave to our control. n0tb0t decouples the user-agent from the input chain, leaving just a joystick thrashing about in response to every twist and turn of a bot rampaging through a stock QuakeIII level. My fi rst impression of n0tb0t was of a haunting: an AI that would take no more, fighting back at the input device in an urgent attempt to disenfranchise itself from a history of bondage. What is actually going on however is a little more complex, a feedback loop of sorts where the bot is driven by the input device and the input device by the bot.” (Julian Oliver)

Creating each work as a complete device rather than an interactive installation, Ryota Kuwakubo not only intends to offer pure experience, but also to relate it to the visitor’s cultural context. It means that the works can take some aspect even if none of its functions are running. This time, he shows several selected works including the early work “Bitman” and the most recent work “Nicodama”, displaying all the works in a static representation to evoke the visitor’s imagination.

BITMAN 1998/2001: Wearable LED display (in collaboration with Maywa Denki.)
VOMODER 2000/2002: Voice reactive animation device.
VIDEOBULB 2000/2004: Tiny capsule generating a video signal. Plug into your TV set.
PLX 2001: Game machine for two persons. Each player duels in a different context.
R/V 2005: Radio controlled vehicle equipped with a video camera and monitor.
NICODAMA 2009: A pair of mechanical eyeballs. Put in on something to empathize it.

Who creates culture?
There is much aesthetic production happening beyond the narrow boundaries of art. While many artists remain at the forefront of media-based production, pop culture is today’s defining cultural practice. The penetration of everyday life by the internet and networked technologies has greatly changed how, and by whom, culture is created. In other words, in a networked world everyone demands his 15 minutes of fame (Jenkins 2002). While the changed media landscape promotes amateur culture it is far from sustaining it. Most hypes are still generated by highly trained experts. Still, the gap between production and consumption that was drawn deeper by inventions like the book or the art market is bridged by cellphone video clips, Linux and Arduino Microcontrollers.

Gadgets, gizmos and artefacts
Our world is full of gadgets, gizmos, and devices (Sterling, 2005), more and more of them networked. They sustain a social function additionally to their practical. In her introduction to Device Art (2006), Machiko Kusahara specifically highlights the experimental nature of devices. Needless to say, a lot of the art pieces of Toshio Iwai, Maywa Denki, and the other device artists are informed by popular culture. A device is placed into the hands of a user rather than a spectator. In the best tradition of interactive art, the empowered spectator is playing a significant role in the work of art. The artwork incorporates the spectator:

“Artists understood this very well, perfecting a series of devices that address spectators. if not as partners, then at least as intervening individuals in a process that would be meaningless without their intervention.” (Poissant 2007, p. 245)

An artefact is a culturally informed document that takes the form of an object. From a certain angle, all objects are artefacts. Artefacts store information over time. They cannot be viewed in isolation but must be read in context of each other. Artefact modding – the art of conserving the cultural vectors of past technology by assigning it a new value – is an established artistic form nowadays. My own piece “bagatelle concrète” is but one example of many. It is a discourse on a once popular object. It is not art, but culture, isn’t it?

HUHTAMO, E. (2004): Trouble at the Interface, or the Identity Crisis of Interactive Art. Framework, The Finnish Art Review, 2/2004.
JENKINS, H. (2002): Interactive Audiences? The ‘collective intelligence’ of media fans. Available at: http://web.mit.educms/People/henry3/collective%20intelligence.html
KUSAHARA, M. (2006): Device Art: A New Form of Media Art from a Japanese Perspective. intelligent agent, 6/2. Available at: http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol6_No2_pacific_rim_kusahara.htm
POISSANT, L. (2007): The Passage from Material to Interface. In: GRAU, O. (Ed.): MediaArtHistories. Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press.
STERLING, B. (2005): Shaping Things. Cambridge, Massachusetts, The MIT Press.

ToyGenoSonic MAKES THE PLAYERS DISCOVER the invisible heart of commodities in urban space. ToyGenoSonic’s notation consists of the mathematical representation of player movements, objects and locations of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) numbers. The interaction-concept plays with the fact, that RFID tags are found in key cards, city transport tickets, ID-cards. Each found RFID tag has a unique number, which generates sound on the Nintendo DS game console by numeric processes that drive the sound synthesis. With an extended game-console, after inserting the artisan Ludic Society’s pataboard tag-reader into the toy’s slot, the player can generate a RFID number specifi c sound, by holding it over a tag. As expanded game console the sharply inclined front-shield becomes an art collector’s item!

The Ludic Society constitutes as international association (54 members, founded 2006) to provoke Ludics as emerging investigation discipline, which ironically follows inverse trajectories of toy and mobile technologies culture to cause an effect of awareness in the critical constitution of a society, in which the shifting increase on games and gadgets, smart objects, technical objectiveness of the subjects (RFID implants, blobjects, „blog-jects“ etc.) can be indicated as phenomenon of a crisis of reality constitution abilities of the individual in the society in general. Real Play is investigated as phenomenon, which transfers the rules of play into real life, as statement and as reaction to indicate western societies as game systems of power, as evident in the world economic fall of capitalism in 2008. Ludic Society as arts project features combinatory, metamorphosis devices. aesthetic experiments on the electronic layout of toys towards plays on identity of the artists and players.

In contemporary “Ludic” realities the presenting artist performs in her arts practice as 1st Life Game Figure. The lecture will include a video of the art-game “Judgement day for 1st Life Game Figures”, Plymouth, UK 2007, including a chip implant session of a subcutaneous Radio Frequency Identification Tag, RFID, declared as “toy” by the performers/players. The introduction of tracking and tracing technologies, gadgets like GPS or WIFI scans as contemporary “toys”, or even more its detection as integrated part of Standard Model toy gadgetry, in Game-boys or NDS consoles, is demonstrated by works, which integrate this
technologies in urban games from 2007-2008.

As general description of the argument, this thinking-layout will cover crucial elements of play culture investigation and will suggest possible solutions in a detected lack of discourse and joyful practice in the design, art and reception of games, play and toys. ludic-society.net/desire

The final point indicates a new genre, to introduce 1st Life Game-figures”, which was labelled by the artist as “game fashion” (2006). Absurde ‘pataphsyical and neo-situationist plays in the “reality engine”, (expect a presentation of the WIFI mapping game Objects of Desire, Gijon, 2008), will sumup conclusions for players in everyday life, in relation to omnipresent subject-object alterations.

Warables without wires, “gamefashion sans fils”, will be introduced. Such toy-dresses transform players into toys themselves. Their movement patterns can be identified by everyday mobile gadgetry, uploaded to a collective gathering place, in Web2.0. Accordingly such Game 3.0 VISUALLY CODED GAMEFASHION, integrate the construction of an Avatar by 1st Life data-traces and misuse geographical mapping systems, like “Google” maps, as Game-maps and metaphors.

PLAY_OBJECTS
What role does the individuality and subject plays in relation to the artefacts, either in materialised Internet of Things (Kranenburg, 2008) or in synthetic worlds games: On one hand Japan’s costume players generate their own communities and incorporate a reality shaped by the new more-way mass media games. On the other hand the Internet of Things declares each commodity and each object as an elaborated entity with its own history and traceable time and way of nascence. The presentation tries to show how these individual worlds of things affect and subsequently change the role of the subject object dualism.

As first step objects and subject relations in toy worlds will be clarified. The so called Internet of Things must not only be considered as playground for commodity logistics, but as constitutive element of „Subjectivation by Dingpolitik“. In this theoretical construct the Thing indicates a gathering place for the community. Similarly virtual play-grounds are a Thing, a community play fetish inside the game of life, filled with objects of desire.

Such contemporary evidence of the link of the construction of subjectivity to toys draws attention towards toys as political “Things”. The cultural scientist Bruno Latour (2005) describes the THING in its etymological meaning and in its political tradition, as gathering place, comparable to a magic circle of play. This social gathering is triggered by objects, by things, which differentiate its opposing realities of self perception in social platforms, whereas the technological toys intrude the subjects skin.

A new paradigm shift is expressed in an unexpected turn towards the „real“, expressed and incorporated in a new consciousness, focusing on materialism. Spheres of electronic networks are made conscious by the means of objects and things, called Spimes, Blogjects, Smartifacts (Sterling, 2006). In the following toy objects shall be addressed as semi-material objects, which serve as vehicle to present the shift of selfconsciousness. In actual games and Online Worlds toys are properties of shape shifters, play-forms of multifacetted self, as expressed in Avatar environments. Metaverse conceptions offer another level of playerconsciousness, formed by the use of synthetic objects. The semi-material toy of actual techno-gadgetry, as a Nintendo DS game console, Iphone, or a Nokia N95 communicator with 3G sensors of WII consoles inherently hold this semi-materialism between a synthetic object and a material toy.

Introducing Ludics / The Ludic Society / Ludic Society Magazines
Ludic methodology must be rooted in theory and applies principles of play as modus operandi. Its emphasis lies on the futility of actual western culture gadgetry rush. Beyond the focus on ostensible toy object accelerando as objective, lays the self reflexive observation of the meta-game of establishing a metascientific society, which constitutes in a collaborative structural play and communicates in its specific Lingo terminology and means and vehicles of publication.
Ludics as emerging investigation discipline ironically follows inverse trajectories of toy and mobile technologies culture to cause an effect of awareness in the critical constitution of a society, in which the shifting increase on games and gadgets, smart objects, technical objectiveness of the subjects (RFID implants, blogjects etc.) can be indicated as phenomenon of a crisis of reality constitution abilities of the individual in the society in general. Real Play is investigated as phenomenon, which transfers the rules of play into real life, as statement and reaction indicating western societies as game systems of power. The poetic method of Ludic texts applies aphorisms as introduced by Nietzsche.

An Action Research Model by Toy Object/IF/ES
Ludic socialites create a special T.A.Z., a Temporary Autonomous Zone (Hakim Bey), which under Ludic banners is further developed as extended game zone, as a T.E.Z., a Temporary Entertainment Zone, in urban and social realities. Its tools and toys are magazines in print, sites online and public interventions in between different spheres of action (play-game-culture-online-First Life). These principles and exemplary games are elaborated since the affiliations foundation in November 2005. The society’s membership still continues to grow. On that point we must express severe gratitude to all contributing personalities and condividualities for their willingness to play the game, to enter into the constraints of Ludics for the merits of a scientific play. As introduced, Ludics implies experiments in playful ways of discourse and reflection on the world of designated toy objects as gaming reality – and by releasing such toys for field studies! The rising use of the term Ludic is considered as a proof of evidence by the Ludic Society researchers. alised material universe of smart objects yearns for a radical antipode: Tous les enfants parlent à leurs joujoux!

Ludics applies the logics of arts but is poaching in the fields of a ‘patascience, materialising “solutions potentielles”, on game and play cultures. It gathers a variety of contributors with expertise in arts, theory, curatorial practice and gaming.
Each theory issue is accompanied by a practical project, an urban game or public intervention, including Geographical Mapping Systems, War Chalking Games supported by NDS standard model game consoles, electromagnetic toys. Printed circuit Boards were given ISBN numbers and used as new publication format, to bring different systems of discursive power to glitch. As “Dispositive” LS members develop new bachelor machines, objects and Game Fashion.

Toy Objectives / Theoretical Toys
In 2007 the first Ludic manifesto was published in Eludamos, a new renowned European game studies magazine. Posters and papers were held at game studies circles like DIGRA, Digital Games Research Association, Tokyo University and 2008 at the Collége du ‘pataphysique daughter Snowball Association in Sierre/Valais. Does this mean that Ludics unfolds as emerging academic discipline? Logically enough this can be refused. Its strategic discourses, bizarre SM couplings of topics, poetic syntax and content are unique and schismatically distinct from established game arts theories. Such methodology provokes unexpected jumps in the science program of the anatomy of games culture. Method and matter produce plain weird but scientifically convincing results to the selfish personal ple/ay/sure of Ludic socialites — a subject/object branch to Fishkill to honour Père UBU!

History
The affiliations periodical in print, the Ludic Society Magazine, appears with international articles on jouissance, joy and jeux. The magazine was presented at 2005 Neue Galerie Graz, 2006 salon transmediale Berlin and Centre Conde Duque Madrid, 2007 Art Centre Plymouth, Tweakfest Zurich, and DEAF Rotterdam Evening Of the Ludic Society, 2008 at Homo Ludens Ludens Gijon and transmediale 08 in a Ludic Society Control Room. Ludic methodology verbalises as poetic statement in neo-pataphysical text, games and toys.
Issue # 1, 2005. Ludics. New Bachelor Machines. Graz/Madrid.
Issue # 2, 2006. Real Players. Ludic Interfaces. Vienna/Zurich.
Issue # 3, 2007. Tagging the City. Plymouth/ Zurich
Issue # 4, 2007. Metaverse and World3. Zurich/ Vienna
Issue # 5, 2008. Objects of Desire. Bari/ Vienna

As addendum it should be mentioned that the project did start in 2005 with the presentation of an installation called “Ludic Society Traces”, exhibited at Neue Galerie Graz and Centre Conde Duque Madrid. Comparable to an ethnographical museum, in baroque vitrines artisan etched toys, made of printed circuit boards were shown together with a LS magazine. The toys were electronically, networked among each other into one kind of materialised Rube Goldberg Machine; in fact they ere technologically working but emantically useless interfaces to game technologies. We called them GoApe Chindogus. The frontispiece of issue one of the Ludic Society magazine (2005) listed the Ten Tenets of Chindogu (Kawakami). The ironic description focused on futile but beloved objects, without any established value in society. Its proximity to the gift in the tradition of Potlatch became seminal for the claim of Ludics. Finally, in 2007 Second Life Lollies were printed as currency of the Ludic Society. At DEAF Rotterdam visitors did get real Surinam food at the Las Palmas warehouse for this colonial Orbis Tertius (Borges) Third World currency, the LS Lolly.

The Ludic Society as Affiliation
was launched in conjunction with artists, theoreticians interested in the practice of play as strategy in everyday life, especially in relation to a growing culture of ubiquitous computing toys and a phenomenology, subsumed under “Real Play”. The emphasis lies on the investigation of a playful methodology to raise awareness about the rules of play simmering into our nowadays Ludic Societies. Indicator for that are mobile gadgetry as phones and game consoles and its abilities to scan personal access data, trace users towards the establishment of a complete World3, a Orbis Tertius as living reality, which is by no means as free and open as Constant (1968) described a new ludic society. The invisible cities architecture, theoretical and discourse focus is paralleled with a line of experimental alternate reality, urban games and ubiquitous computing games. Out of that content focus a network did grow since the affiliations foundation with 6 members to actual over 50 international renowned members from the field of game -arts, -studies, philosophies and theory. The connection and discourse among members is established by the publication of the club periodical, the Ludic Society Magazine in print, paralleled with a on line version, featuring dynamic topics. The main strategy was to link a practical collaborative game art work to each issue edited. According to this thematic trajectory, new associates and members join in with each issue. By this way also a respectable network of instiutional affiliations was achieved.

People and Socialites
The Ludic Society still grows, active recruitment takes place with each new issue to be released. Membership is a matter of affinity and friendship, a purely subjective decision among peers; its only objective precondition is an engagement of the aspirant to some submission to the Ludic community or to Ludics as emerging discipline, at least in the form of a statement for one of the publications. Even with the activist implantation of RFID chips members were recruited, as subversive subcoutanous Real Play statement. Editors of the first 5 magazines were Jahrmann/ Moswitzer, which must/will not necessarily remain like this.
Random selection of some actual active affiliates, random order: Ilias Marmaras, Jonah Brucker-Cohen, Doris Carmen Rusch, Stewart Home, Martin Howse, Natasha Vita-More, Alessandro Ludovico, David McConville, Martha Blassnig, Konrad Becker, Edward Castronova, Roy Ascott, Cynthia Haynes, Marina Grzinic, Beat Suter, Wolfgang Fiel, P. M. Ong, Mr. Ministeck, Ernst Strouhal, DJ GLow, Mathias Fuchs, Maia Engeli, Max_Oh, F.E. Rakuschan, Gordan Savicic, Mike Phillips, Tatiana Bazzichelli, Nikos Bubaris, Eleni Myrivili, Duncan Shingleton, Günther Hack, Julian Oliver, Geoff Cox, Kristian Lukits, Joasia Krysa, Olli Leino, McKenzie Wark, Aileen Derieg, Dr. Joachim Maier, Daphne Dragona, Siegfried Zielinsky.

Society Chapters
The Society is Hell’s Angels like organised in “chapters”, in Vienna, Zurich, Spain or Plymouth. As the bikers club tuned their machines the Ludits tune absurde hard-ware devices, like SM standard model game consoles, GPS, or NFCmobile phones, to over-clock game concepts as reality concepts. Ouvroir as French term for garage used by the ‘pataphysical society, inspired another motto of Ludics, to develop Ouvroirs Ludic Potentielles, OU/LU/PO! In Ludics one declares certain constraints, in short games, as production principles of poetic work. Then Ouvroir is epistemologically rooted in ouvrir (=open), which lead to Real Play experiments in open living forms, artes liberales, establishing sexual relations and bands. As Temporary Entertainment Zones, these appearances disappear in the moment they are established: In honour to Hakim Bey the LS releases TAPZ, temporary autonomous play zones!

“Most recently, the Ludic Society has been developing absurd interfaces for gaming and performance. Their current work involves aesthetically redesigning circuit boards so they become fashion objects and can also be performed as musical instruments. This challenges the normally unquestioned functionality, utilitarianism, and inscrutability of not only circuit boards, but also the objects they enable and therefore represent. As something that typical mortals cannot understand, technology has acquired an almost spiritual mystique and therefore a position of power in contemporary culture. By twisting (figuratively and literally) the circuit board into something quite different and unexpected, the Ludic Society turns assumptions about technology’s cultural role on their head.“
Amy Alexander, San Diego

Objective xxxxx: Wave-Objects
Inspired by game consoles and handhelds, the Ludic Society developed a series of new bachelor machines and neo-’pataphysist objects. Their launch was heralded by a series of PCB Chindogus, Printed Circuit Board objects, 2005 to 2006. These garage-works were accomplished by Wunderbäumchen aether refreshers in spring 2007, followed by a subcutaneous RFID bijoux implant in a gallery space in England, as activist statement. Several City walks and war drives, guided by cabal satellite maps followed as performances on Dérive and Détournement. The technological lie was achieved by the application of Kaballa rules on read RFID numbers as Alternate Reality constituting elements of a game. In winter 2007 in a urban game by the LS at Piksel Norway, firmware flashed game consoles for city walks were connected to customized RFID reader toys. Public interventions paralleled game fashion, to culminate in futile toy objects.
A hitherto immaterial culture has changed into a ubiquitous one, made of smartifacts, blogjects, spimes. This re-materialised material universe of smart objects yearns for a radical antipode: Tous les enfants parlent à leurs joujoux!

Alternate Reality Engine
The Ludic Society commutes theory and transformative play as strategy in everyday life, especially in relation to a growing culture of ubiquitous computing toys and Real Plays. Parallel with the emphasis on the investigation of a playful methodology to raise awareness about the rules of play simmering into our nowadays Ludic Societies, to mobile gadgetry as phones and game consoles and its abilities to scan personal access data and trace users towards the establishment of a complete World3, a Orbis Tertius as living reality, which is by no means as free and open as Constant (1968) was describing a new ludic society. The invisible cities architecture, theoretical and discourse focus was paralleled with a line of experimental alternate reality, urban games and ubiquitous computing projects.

The presentation introduces this taxonomy and connects them with artistic game projects and works of the artist. Until now, very general categories like “machinima” made it very difficult to talk about player-created media artefacts. The presentation proposes 6 new categories for game artefacts (competition, construction, expression, performance, community and documentation; each containing 6 subgroups). With this new taxonomy of game-artefacts, it is now possible to systematically describe and discuss these ludic artefacts.

“Common Flowers / White Out” reverses the effects of the modification of the petal colour in carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) from white to blue through genetic manipulation. By using a DIY bio-bending approach, the genes which are responsible for the blue colour are exorcised from the plant and its orginal natural white colour is reinstated. “White Out” is the next logical step of the “Common Flowers” series, which laid the foundation by re-animating, multiplying and technically cloning the first commerically available and purely aesthetic GM product, Suntory’s blue “Moondust” carnations. The interest is less biotechno-centric, but more towards solidifying concepts of “bio-media” and “wetware”. “White Out” takes this process a step further by removing the previously introduced genetic material and creating a non-genetically modified plant from a previous GM plant. This double genetic manipulation negates the original intention and serves to question concepts of “change”, “nature”, and “manipulation” in the ongoing biosciences and in the wider social context.

The piece is experienced by the listener while he individually wanders though the outskirt high-rise area. He wears headphones and a GPS- and sensor equipped computing device, allowing the composition to unfold while he drifts through the area. A binaural sound simulation incorporates the sounds that have been affiliated by the artists to certain places into his acoustic environment, as if they were around him. While the listener explores the urban environment himself, he is also shaping his very own spatial sound narrative. The project is based on the artists’ self-developed software “Global Player”.

The word “etude” is often used to refer to short musical compositions emphasizing certain aspects of the composer in the form of a sketch. Mamoru’s “etude” is a series of works related to everyday objects, most of them cheap and easy to find, that are transformed into something unexpected by means of a simple idea.

etude no.7 – plastic straw: blow into either end of the straw very gently. Listen to the complex pattern of overtones ringing.
etude no.12 – plastic film: compress certain amount of food folio and leave. Listen to it from a small distance.
etude no.13 – ice cube: listen to the melting sound from a small distance.
etude no.22 – glass bottle: use it to amplify other etude sounds. Use two of them like stereo head phones.
etude no.31 – duct tapes: scratch or numb the surface of different kinds of tape.
etude no.33 – sparkling water: put some starch into it. Try different things, too.

The presented work moids 2.0 is the second version of our basic theme. After several pursuits, we came to focus on acoustics that emerge as a result of an organic and decentralized process. The core element of this acoustic emergence is what we call a “single reactive unit” consisting of an audible signal device, a microphone and a microchip. It generates audible signals when sound comes in. To realize a structure where units can be evenly arranged, we use a equilateral triangular metal frame and put a unit on each edge. The three units form fuzzy acoustic loops and react to the surrounding acoustic. By connecting metal frames, the acoustic structures and loops can be combined while maintaining distances, angles and of course the acoustic relation of units.

We constructed a mass of units with hacking electro-acoustic devices and tried to find an acoustic emergence that is possible with these potential existance only. Compared to a single function unit, how different will the acoustic emergence be?

I have been travelling a lot this year. The worries and unknown fears when I am passing time zones, that time passes too fast while I am in this passage and unstable environment, makes me aware of the power of the territorial. As a form of power it is a certain place or geography always expressing shifting relations to external movements, circumstances. Being in vast, and then almost immediately hyper-crowded places, suggests a constant inclusion and fast reworking of such relational forms of power, how they affect my own narrative, and thus give an idea of how variable the territorial in itself is. On my way from Perugia, Italy, back to London, the flight is delayed for about two hours due to adverse weather conditions. In a distractingly tiny waiting lounge at Perugia airport I read “Unbounded”, a recent text by Irit Rogoff in Networked Cultures (Irit Rogoff, Unbounded, pp.46-51. In: Peter Mörtenböck & Helge Mooshammer (eds) Networked Cultures, Parallel Architectures and the Politics of Space, Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2008). In a way that maps out poignantly some of my own experiences – which I cannot write down or voice easily -, she describes the intrinsic link between territorialities and intellectual paradigms,
and the necessity of working precisely within the complex zone where boundaries become sensitive and transparent. Indeed, only by inhabiting and reworking these boundaries is it possible to think about them as something that cannot “sustain their divisive capabilities” (Rogoff, 2008 p.51). If I’d draw a diagram of my movement, geographically – intellectually, it would then always be a projection or fiction – in other words, a sketch of a path virtually completed.

“I prefer not to use predictable paths” is an excerpt from a mobile phone text message from Heath Bunting to the author, 22-Aug-07 15:31, during Bunting’s project BorderXing, commissioned by Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck.

The East Asian contemporary art scene becomes rapidly famous all over the world and has been dramatically changed within the last 5 years, especially in mainland China. FEC has been involved in interesting projects with East Asian artists: “Under the Cheery blossoms and Indoor Hot Spring” (Liu Xiaodong, Yokohama, 2007), “Hyatt Hotel” (Liu Jianhua, Shanghai, 2008), “Platform Exhibition” (Seoul, 2008), “Discharge Mode to Order” (Tsumura Kosuke and Kaneuji Teppei, Yokohama, 2008), Media installation projects by SHIMURABROS. (Yokohama, 2008-09) and AIR projects between Yokohama and Beijing (2007-09). These projects mentioned were showing that “interesting” things happen not at big art museums but at a smaller scale, since most of the art museums are too conservative to experiment or have not established yet in East Asia. Under these conditions, FEC aims to provide opportunities for East Asian artists to experiment together.

Everyday machines, such as computer devices for instance, are specifically designed to work with data; on the other hand, these machines carry within the possibility to be treated as real objects. In her installation, computer and data devices, used in an unconventional way, are subjected to unusual operations and becoming “performative objects”, open up unpredicted possibilities. The resulting images represent a record, which enables us to look at these media devices from another point of view. This installation is made of three main devices: a scanner is placed on the wall upright; a gadget made of gearwheels producing motion, is installed in front of the scanner; a printer with four wheels runs along a platform.

“Common Flowers / White Out” reverses the effects of the modification of the petal colour in carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus L.) from white to blue through genetic manipulation. By using a DIY bio-bending approach, the genes which are responsible for the blue colour are exorcised from the plant and its orginal natural white colour is reinstated. “White Out” is the next logical step of the “Common Flowers” series, which laid the foundation by re-animating, multiplying and technically cloning the first commerically available and purely aesthetic GM product, Suntory’s blue “Moondust” carnations. The interest is less biotechno-centric, but more towards solidifying concepts of “bio-media” and “wetware”. “White Out” takes this process a step further by removing the previously introduced genetic material and creating a non-genetically modified plant from a previous GM plant. This double genetic manipulation negates the original intention and serves to question concepts of “change”, “nature”, and “manipulation” in the ongoing biosciences and in the wider social context.

Through smashing, cutting, slicing and burning the computer mouse, the movement of the mouse pointer on the desktop shows the screaming of the dying mouse. This is a software art piece showing an image of the connection between material and information.

In the moment of destroying a computer device, the mouse as material and its cursor as data leave a “last statement”. DanmatsuMouse captures this statement by video camera and a computer program in parallel. By running exonemo’s application on your computer, the image of destroying the mouse and the motion of the cursor will be replayed simultaneously on the desktop. The motion of the cursor is replayed using the real cursor on your computer, so you have a simulated experience of the moment of destroying the mouse.

The presented work moids 2.0 is the second version of our basic theme. After several pursuits, we came to focus on acoustics that emerge as a result of an organic and decentralized process. The core element of this acoustic emergence is what we call a “single reactive unit” consisting of an audible signal device, a microphone and a microchip. It generates audible signals when sound comes in. To realize a structure where units can be evenly arranged, we use a equilateral triangular metal frame and put a unit on each edge. The three units form fuzzy acoustic loops and react to the surrounding acoustic. By connecting metal frames, the acoustic structures and loops can be combined while maintaining distances, angles and of course the acoustic relation of units.

We constructed a mass of units with hacking electro-acoustic devices and tried to find an acoustic emergence that is possible with these potential existance only. Compared to a single function unit, how different will the acoustic emergence be?

Origami Space Race is an initiative project for an alternative space program based on open source strategies. It is a race for development of the best origami space airplane with the final goal of initiating the open source space program as an alternative to “official” space programs. The project’s main aim is a turn in the approach to the space technology, a turn towards more ecological technologies and into a more open perception and greater accessibility of space.

In this project, art functions as a stimulant for the idea being developed by Japanese scientists, who are planning to launch an origami aircraft from an international space station. This idea has the potential of becoming a starting point of a new generation of ecological spacecrafts as well as other origami structures applicable in space. Because of the extreme conditions in outer space, the technology being developed for these purposes could constitute the precondition for a technological revolution on Earth. The Origami Space Race project would like to stimulate and contribute to these future inventions.

Altering fans, televisions, and other everyday appliances, converting their functions into something utterly diff erent, UMEDA creates objects freed from their original meanings. His works, created to suit the spaces in which they will be installed, use utterly familiar, commonplace phenomena, channeled through his clever handiness and unique spatial sensibility, to create mysterious, seemingly impossible sensations. They thereby free you from rigid perceptions constrained by preconceived ideas.

Everyday machines, such as computer devices for instance, are specifically designed to work with data; on the other hand, these machines carry within the possibility to be treated as real objects. In her installation, computer and data devices, used in an unconventional way, are subjected to unusual operations and becoming “performative objects”, open up unpredicted possibilities. The resulting images represent a record, which enables us to look at these media devices from another point of view. This installation is made of three main devices: a scanner is placed on the wall upright; a gadget made of gearwheels producing motion, is installed in front of the scanner; a printer with four wheels runs along a platform.